New Vocabulary
by insideout7777
Summary: New Summary - Gorillaz with a mystic twist. Yes this is a 2D/Murdoc fic, but there is a story I want to tell in the meantime. Don't worry, lemony goodness IS on the way. Reviews helpful and greatly appreciated.
1. Precipitate

**pre·cip·i·tate **

**noun**

**A substance precipitated from a solution.**

"And if I should ask you what the most complicated emotion in the human experience might be, how would you answer?" Professor Lordstron addressed the class. He fiddled with the lapels on his beige tweed suit and replaced a wispy bit of thinning white-blonde hair behind his ear where it belonged. "_Is_ there an answer?" he prompted again and looked out over the amalgam of faces that dotted the sea of chairs in front of him. Nobody seemed forthcoming. He stepped out from behind the podium. An intuition gripped him, one that came too infrequently in every professor's career: that is, there are questions that, if posed in a classroom, are always sure to be rhetorical. This was undoubtedly one of them.

And yet, instinct suggested that there could be an answer lurking out there, somewhere. He would give it a moment, then retreat to the lecture.

Gripped with eager anticipation he paced along the platform edge until a young woman put her hand up in the far left corner. "Yes," he strode over to face her.

"Perversity," she answered.

"Perversity," Professor Lordstron echoed, a small smile drawn hesitatingly across his face. "Could you explain, Miss . . .?" The girl looked at him but did not provide him with a name.

"I mean the sort of perversity that Edgar Allen Poe wrote about," she clarified in a slow, deliberate voice, "the human phenomenon to take hedonistic, ah, sadistic pleasure in causing pain and suffering to those who love them unconditionally." She spoke carefully and over pronounced each consonant with just the slightest accent, he noticed.

"And_ how_ is that more complicated than, say, anger? Or nostalgia?" She took a moment to reply, her eyes trained on her open notebook. Then:

"I assert it is complicated because it is fundamentally," she paused and made a little frustrated movement with her hand, "dissonant. I think that is what fascinated Poe - the, ah, _potential _to hate what you love, and how it can grow." For a moment it seemed she had just one more thing to add, but then she looked away, clearly not inclined to elaborate further. He nodded, satisfied that his intuition had been correct.

XXXXX

Apparently bolstered by the occasion, her professor carried on with the lecture in an especially spirited tone.

Even so, Noodle tuned out the rest of the hour to dwell on her own thoughts. Normally she was very engaged, but now she couldn't focus on what he was saying; it was like he was speaking English before she remembered how to hold on to the words.

_The more they love you_, she whispered in her head. _How it can grow the more that they love you, the more you love them_.

Like when light catches just right on fishing line she saw it strung between them, could even reach out and touch it sometimes.

According to 2D they were mates before Paula. Not perfect, but mates. And he'd told her once, in Beijing, that Murdoc used to be different; less . . . chronically lunatic.

At the end of the lecture Noodle made a quick exit into the crisp fall air. Fewer and fewer leaves remained on the trees, and the sky was a stark white above the hulking grey and brick buildings of University College. There along the northern edge of campus she waited perched atop a stone wall, tried to block out the chill cut of wind as she checked her watch. It would be about five minutes more before Russ arrived to pick her up, so the otherwise straightedge guitarist pulled out a rare and secret cigarette from a pack concealed in the lining of her purse.

She'd tried to ask her band mates about Murdoc once, tried to find out the right words in English. The question had been quite simple, really, posed after an incident in the studios involving an overly-medicated 2D and a precariously balanced bottle of rum.

"Russel-san, Murdoc is?" Accustomed to this frequent request, (bugger is? omelet is?), Russel chuckled knowingly while he stirred a bubbling concoction on the stove.

"He's a word I'd rather you _not_ learn, Noodle-girl." Just as well. What could Russel know about it? Better to ask 2D anyway.

"2D-san, Murdoc is?" she repeated the request for more information down in his basement bedroom.

"'e's m'best mate, lil luv," he answered absently as he plunked at his keyboards with a cigarette between his fingers. Curious, Noodle put her palm up against the dark colored bruise over his cheekbone.

"No, Toochi. Murdoc is . . . how do you say?"

"Like, wot _is_ 'e? Like, wot sorta bloke?" She nodded enthusiastically. "Well, erm, I dunno, don' tell 'im I said this, but, erm, 'e's sor' of a . . . well, 'e's sor' of a _git_."

Well, Noodle hadn't a clue what a git was, so finally she approached the man himself.

"Murdoc-san, what sort-a-bloke . . ." she watched his eyes narrow as she tried to mimic 2D's words from earlier, "you are?"

"What?"

"Or, ah, _are you_?" He trained his two-toned eyes on her until she felt a little nervous. "Or, you are, ah, _different_, yes? From me?" she tried again. A second passed, then another. Then his eyes narrowed, and widened suddenly as he straightened up out of his slouched position on the couch.

"Oh, bloody hell, _Russ_!" he yelled out at the top of his lungs. "Oi! Lards!" he continued to yell as he strode purposefully through the corridors in search of the big man. Noodle followed him, confused. "Fatty!" he exclaimed as he burst into the kitchen, "Russ, mate, she's all yours. Cheers," he said in a rush and tried to slip right back out the door.

"Whoa, whoa, why're you trippin' right now, just chill out man," Russ stepped in his path.

"Now listen here, I may be qualified, yeah? But I _refuse_ to have that conversation with her."

"You're not going _anywhere _until you tell me what's up," Russ growled in his take-no-prisoners voice and backed Murdoc up into a chair.

"OK, OK, relax lards she just, erm," he swiveled the one red eye to cast a furtive glance in her direction before he looked away again hastily. "Sweet Satan," he grimaced, "she just fuckin' asked me about the birds and the bees, yeah?"

Dead silence.

"She_ what_?" Noodle didn't know what Murdoc meant by birds and bees, but she definitely knew what murder looked like reflected in Russ's white eyes.

"Birds and bees, Russel-san, I do not understand." Her words of reason just made everything worse.

"_WHAT DOESN'T SHE UNDERSTAND, NICCALS? WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOIN' WITH HER IN THE ROOM_?" the volume was enough to drain the color from Murdoc's face.

"Russel-san," she squeaked, "only TV." A vein in the black man's temple throbbed.

"You sick son of a bitch." The bassist didn't have a chance to clarify before Russel's fist connected with his jaw. "YOU WANNA WATCH THAT SHIT, YOU DO IT _BEHIND_ CLOSED DOORS, NOT WHERE BABY GIRL CAN _SEE_ IT," the drummer raged and went to punch Murdoc again.

"Are you fucking kidding me? I wasn't watching _porn_ you _moron_," Murdoc managed as he reached up to cradle his jaw with one hand. For a second Russ seemed to draw back a bit. Noodle rushed over and put her little hands over his big fist.

By then all the noise had drawn 2D out of the woodwork and up to the kitchen where he poked his head in through the cracked door.

"Fam-ily mee'ing?"

Noodle had to smile at the memory.

Once it was all worked out Murdoc wasn't the least bit embarrassed, of course. His mind was always way down deep in the filthiest of gutters where shame was obsolete.

"What _am_ I? I'm a powerful source of spiritual essence made flesh, Noodle-girl," he'd answered matter-of-factly.

Weren't they all.

She wasn't _too_ disappointed. Besides, just a year later she had enough language skills to find out what she really wanted to know on her own, anyway. By then things had reached a frightening cataclysm, and that's when she'd come across a collection of Poe's short stories on one of her covert missions into Murdoc's Winnebago.

Smoke streamed seamless grey into the darkening sky. Although cigarettes were . . . _distasteful_ to her, there were certain occasions which begged relief. Now seemed one of them - for reasons too many and too complex to enumerate - and as Pazuzu's protection waned she knew it would only get worse.

Right on time she caught the roar of the Geep as it accelerated at a distant stoplight. Heart heavy with foreboding, Noodle hopped down to chuck her butt in the bin at the corner.

As evening closed its jaws around the dreary city Noodle clenched her teeth and collected herself in verse.

_Night advances,  
__the moon glows and falls into the ocean.  
__The black dragon jewel you have been searching for  
__is everywhere.__  
_


	2. Prelude

**prel·ude **

**noun**

**An action or event serving as an introduction to something more important.**

Sometime beyond when our story must begin . . .

The two wound their way through lifeless streets behind the train yards bordering London's city limits, an industrial wasteland that reminded Murdoc of drunken pilgrimages made years and years ago.

The day had passed in sparse and quiet certainty, like the yellow squares of sunlight cast at odd angles over the smooth leather furniture in their modern hotel room. Such was the mood when they woke that morning, barely a word spoken between them as they smoked, ate a bite of cold leftovers, and then showered together under the unbearably hot spray of city water tangy with trace metals.

Now, as his wet hair chilled rapidly in the cold air outside, Murdoc remembered how his singer's had looked plastered hot and wet against his pale cheeks and neck in a billow of white steam. Caught between memory and the present, he watched 2D exhale from deep inside so that his warm, humid breath crystallized as it left the wide gap in his front teeth.

A frost of shattered glass adorned the cracked, uneven sidewalks under the empty gaze of hundreds of broken or missing windows, vacant like 'D's lifeless stare when he was doped up on painkillers. It was late fall, around the time when clouds gather endlessly and everything is bare and . . ._ crosshatched, maybe, like sketches in charcoal_. He spit. Clearly 2D's brain was leaking into his again, except they hadn't done any acid and this wasn't a Robert&Roberts production, thank you very much. He hated that moron's meaningless, offhand, zen-stupid idiot-nothings more than he hated goddamn _fucking_ hippies.

Of course Murdoc could've driven them right up to the yards from their hotel, but he knew 2D liked to stare at all the myriad, colorful graffiti scrawled over concrete and brick, and Murdoc liked to stare at 2D, so all in all it was at least a lesson in_ inane indulgence_ as they walked through the decayed, forgotten lattice of London's old industrial sector.

As late afternoon crept on towards evening a tall chain-link fence lined with razor wire came into view, and from a long way away the frictional, rhythmical sound of multiple trains over uneven track reached Murdoc's ears, numb with cold.

Sure those dirty punks and the dirty punk _descendants_ of those dirty punks would keep a section in perpetual disrepair, Murdoc led 2D along the fence line until an old mattress came into view. Just like he remembered, it hid a poorly executed hole that let out just behind a massive brick building. "Ta da," he motioned 2D through with a smirk.

Through the rough cut rabbit hole smokestacks loomed in the distance over flat, empty space. Numerous tracks curved eerily, clonally, away under the monotonous gray sky and a few low, squat brick buildings were dotted about, but really there wasn't much to obscure the distant horizon from view.

Murdoc lit two cigarettes and handed one to 2D. His singer took an absentminded drag as he followed the smokestacks up into the clouds with his blank eyes. Murdoc didn't need to look around to know they were completely alone, so he motioned for 2D to follow him as he made his way around to the other side of the big, sooty building at their backs.

"This way," he explained and began to mount the old iron foot rungs that led up to the roof.

Nostalgia was an ugly feeling that crawled down the backs of his legs as he stepped over the parapet onto the familiar stained concrete littered with fags, crumpled beer cans, and the occasional used hypodermic. Annoyed, he glared out at the huge train switching station at the far periphery of the yard.

Sparrows in the distance took flight as a loud clang echoed around the still, open air. Murdoc heard 2D come up behind him and watched the smoke from his friend's cigarette blend with his and blow away northward.

"I like it 'ere, Muds," 2D said finally and smiled out at nothing, "Will a train come through?" he asked. Murdoc shrugged.

"I have no idea, two dents." He came to stand next to the tall man. 2D hung over the parapet and scanned the yard below. Already accustomed to the view, Murdoc leaned with his back against the wall and watched 2D instead. After a while a train did pull through. The blue-haired man flicked his fag over the edge and spoke.

"I's prob'ly the loneliest fing 've ever seen, y'know, each car passin' by like tha', like summfink, and then comes the nex' one an' it looks iden'ical, yeah? Ev'ryfing's the same over and over again," he said in a distant voice, and not for the first time Murdoc wondered at 2D's strange savant-like way with concepts and keyboards and lyrics; like the prophets from thousands of years ago were probably morons just like the dullard - maybe hit their heads a few too many times and started to babble on about nonsense like they knew what they were on about.

But then, unwillingly caught up in the stoner wisdom of it all, Murdoc grudgingly followed 2D's line of sight.

_Oh, for the love of_ . . . Murdoc grit his teeth and sighed. It wasprobably the loneliest _fucking _thing he'd ever seen.

Each car passed by like a bead on a string, immediately replaced by the next identical car. Everything was the same over and over again - all the tracks that converged on the horizon, all the soaring dark grey dots in the distance against the light grey clouds, and even the sound of the cars over the tracks _click CLACK, click CLACK_ like your heartbeat _tha THUMP tha THUMP_ - just like that until you die.

"Yeah, like your 'eart beats the same forever 'til i' stops," 2D echoed his thoughts out loud.

"Shut it, faceache," Murdoc grumbled. "Bloody hell." He wondered if he'd ever get used to that.

It made him hot and itchy with anxious frustration when he couldn't escape the massive gravity well that was his best mate.

The smell of cold machinery lingered on the roof, but still Murdoc was tuned into the warm aura of butterscotch as if his face was still pressed up against his mate's skin, like they were still wrapped up under the white hotel sheets together. And, he acknowledged as he shut his eyes, there was still that trace of ocean, now oh-so-faint.

The almost there, almost gone smell of it reminded him of a pub he used to frequent on the coast, the Weedy Burton. Every time the door swung open and shut a cold, salty draft of air would sweep through, and by the time it reached the back there was only ever the subtle undertone of winter surf beneath the alcoholic smell of beer and whiskey heavy with the bodies-warm heat of the place.

2D coughed and Murdoc refocused. All around them everything was grey and brown and black, and there inches from his face was 2D's oddly colored hair.

Everyone always wanted to know how his singer's hair turned electric blue. Honestly the story was tedious enough to bore a sodding sloth.

"Y'know, I keep knocking you on the head to see if I can't turn your hair back," Murdoc joked darkly and reached out to tug a rogue spike that stuck up over his singer's ear. "I've always wondered what your natural color is," he added under his breath. 2D smiled brightly.

"I didn' know tha's why you a'ways hit me - I coulda told you, Muds, I cracked my 'ead loads o' times after tha' an' it never changed back," he explained with a note of sorrow. The tall man looked perplexed suddenly. "An' I coulda told you my na-tural color: i's," Murdoc hit him upside the head.

"Shhh, don't ruin the surprise," he quirked an amused smile and stared expectantly at his singer's hair.

"Muds, you can' keep knockin' me on the 'ead jus' ta see my color, i' won' ever work!" The desperate urgency in his mate's voice made Murdoc want to do it again, but these days he had better control over those impulses than usual. Still itchy, though, he lit another cigarette instead.

Whenever he considered 2D's hair his thoughts always strayed to his own physical . . . _eccentricities_.

"Ever wonder about my teeth, eh, two dents?" 2D blew out a cloud of smoke while he shook his head.

"Nah Muds, I never though' abou' i', ac-tually."

"Well the whole sordid affair is a bloody legend in my brother's crew. They roughed me up, yeah? Laid me out all the time. Anyway, right, my brother's favorite thing to do was bounce my face off of _very hard surfaces_; my mouth, mostly." A moment passed and Murdoc took a deep pull off his cigarette. "Well, after he did the front ones like that, I think he just wanted to finish the job." At this 2D absentmindedly tongued his gap and fixed an unusually intent gaze on Murdoc's big hands, then away again. He'd have no sympathy for Murdoc - of that he'd made completely certain.

The parapet cut into Murdoc's back, and he remembered what it felt like to eat that brick a long time ago, what it felt like to have Hannibal's big hand clenched tight in his hair as his face was ground into the wall. He could also vaguely recall returning during the day to sit up there and smoke cigarettes. And then later, when he was 14, 15 maybe, he'd bring birds up, get them nice and drunk, and then fuck them against the same spot while he watched the sun rise over those endless tracks from over their shoulder.

Nostalgia was a creeping, evil thing, Murdoc thought with an ugly grimace. How could he miss any of that?

For a while longer they stood together on the roof and smoked, but as the wind picked up and the last light died away Murdoc led the way back down the iron rungs.

"Want to call a taxi then?" Murdoc asked.

"I dunno, I rather liked ta walk through i' all, y'know?" 2D replied vaguely. Murdoc sighed.

"Right then. Don't say I never humor you, faceache."


	3. Elemental

**el·e·men·tal **

**noun**

**A supernatural entity or force thought to be physically manifested by occult means.**

Always for Murdoc Niccals life as just another coked out rocker on the street was not an option; ultimately, and from the beginning, his was a quest for power.

"Oi! Where the hell is Georgie?" Murdoc bellowed at his guitarist as the useless sod tried to collect his moldy dreads into an enormous knit hat.

"How should I know, man?"

Of course, power was sometimes hard to come by, especially when all you have to work with is a crew oftalentless _deadweights_ in it for a quick buck and what would probably be an even quicker fuck. They were backstage (if, by backstage, you meant the hallway outside the toilets behind the dining area) where Murdoc paced back and forth, manic, with a cigarette between his jagged teeth.

"I know where that git is - doubtless in _there_," he emphasized with a vicious kick to the door to the men's room, "with a tenner shoved up his nose," Murdoc growled and clenched his fists. Not that he didn't indulge in a little pre-gig pick-me-up himself on occasion - probably why he found himself so _wound up _at the moment - but at least he had the _professional fucking courtesy_ to do it in the privacy of his car _before_ he arrived at the venue.

_And where was his drummer?_ Murdoc stuck his head out the side door. "Get off the bloody phone, you slag!" Fingers at the bridge of his nose, Murdoc tried to remember why patience was a virtue. Whatever the justification it was probably why he never had any in abundance, especially when it came to rallying these clowns before a show. All he could do was light another cigarette off the cherry of his last one and remind himself _why_ he was here at yet _another_ dingy pub for about the _millionth_ weekend in a row.

"I suppose _you_ wouldn't have a clue, would you," he mused resignedly at his keyboardist who finally emerged from the toilets just as they were due on stage. The fidgety man looked at Murdoc like he'd gone way off the plot. "Well, come on then."

Ah, _right_, _that's_ why he did this - blinded by badly trained lights, muscles taut with cocky self-confidence, half hard behind his bass from the adrenaline that hit his system - this is what he lived for, what he dreamed it would be like at the top.

Because really, there had been too many insufferable humiliations and injustices to settle for anything less than Satan's kingdom on earth: pure, unadulterated debauchery through _world domination_, yeah? - except without all the, er, responsibilities of a dictator or a warlord. No, Murdoc's idea of global tyranny ran more along the lines of fame, fortune, and endless opportunity. Respect was optional.

Even as a boy he was too smart to fall for any of that drivel the rest of humanity seemed to gobble up like instant happy: _it wasn't real_, right? And once he'd had a taste of the good stuff - the primal pleasures cordoned off from the masses by so-called _societal_ _mores_ - Murdoc knew he couldn't go back to that spoon-fed, infantile existence like all those regular jackoffs out there.

No, ever since his first correspondence with the man downstairs Murdoc knew _exactly_ what he wanted; and he'd never stop, not until he'd made it.

Although, he had to admit, with this lot it might take a bit longer than expected.

The pub was small and he knew that most of the people crowded in booths and around the little wooden tables hadn't come to see Durango 95 in particular - they were probably regulars, in for their weekend drunk, but what all could he do about that?

Murdoc had an abundance of vision, yeah? And he was no slouch on stage either, no thanks to his slipshod crew of ill-trained delinquents. Hell, anyone who paid any attention to the band could see that the bassist was the true performer. The way he occupied the stage was the same way any politician with a knack for rhetoric occupied the podium - he drew the eye, kept things unpredictable, and all the while made no misstep.

A musician plays with their whole body, and Murdoc could feel the tension pulled across his muscles and tight in the wide, rough strings of his bass. It should've been like But still, as much technical skill as he learned and employed, as much of his own secret vulnerability as he poured out into every attempt and execution, still every bass he acquired played like a drum full of sand.

After they finished to a smattering of applause and drunken catcalls Murdoc immediately divested himself of the offending instrument and stalked out to his car to indulge in a little powdered encouragement. The cold was insistent, but Murdoc was still burning up with energy so he perched on the dented boot of his trusty Vauxhall Astra as he smoked and watched a couple hook up a little ways down the alley.

Glowering, he smashed the fag out under his boot as the urge to go somewhere, elsewhere, anywhere, or really just to _do_ something or _fuck_ someone or _start _something began to speed up his heart. The drugs made it worse, but fuck if it wasn't a lesson in futility trying to keep the mania at bay.

Better to embrace it than to let it slow you down, yeah?

XXXXX

Murdoc usually made quick work of any local talent.

As most blokes will attest, the biggest obstacle that stands between a man and a one-night-stand is getting the girl to acknowledge your existence in the first place. As the frontman of a band that particular problem is very neatly solved, and after that all's left is to get her nice and sloshed and then charm her until she's wet enough to actually leave with you. All of that and more Murdoc could easily achieve on autopilot.

So, in other words, he was rather _bored_ as the bar crowd grew less and less dense and his current conquest grew more and more _chatty_. Rather than tune in to her drunken blather, Murdoc found himself examining the way the amber liquid in his tumbler reflected the ceiling lights back at him in yellow, murky blobs.

Totally engrossed, Murdoc couldn't tell you why he was compelled to look up _just then_,two-toned eyes immediately drawn to the corner of the dining area just as this strange blot of a girl fled from the kitchen through the swinging butler doors to cut through the thinning crowd, a drop of water over a greasy pan. A moment later and he would've missed her hasty exit entirely.

There was something about her that immediately tugged at Murdoc - something about the angry way she hurled herself through the raucous, end-of-night merry-makers, drunkards, lovers, and potential lovers, like she wanted no part of any of it. Well, to be more specific, really it was more the way she carried herself; like, she may have moved quickly, face half-hidden with a knit hat, but Murdoc could smell a meth addict from about a _mile_ away, see?

Not overly concerned with being polite, Murdoc slid off his barstool without a word to his ex-conquest and followed the radiantly dull girl out into the damp, sticky cold. There were no stars, just fog, but he could see the weird milky outline of the moon through the icy condensation.

Salivating with eager anticipation, Murdoc felt like a hungry dog drawn by the aroma of food scraps to the business-end of a dirty kitchen pub as he tailed her through the slushy city streets.

It seemed her exit was timed to coincide with the arrival of one of the last late-night buses, and Murdoc had just a moment to decide whether she might be worth a towed car and what would likely end up being an expensive negotiation for the release of his equipment, currently stashed at the pub, before the doors hissed shut.

Ah, fuck it.

Inside it was grisly warm and pongy with sour booze and aftershave. The girl sat down in the way back and Murdoc took a seat across the aisle. Right away he noticed that her tattered and splotched purple jacket with one of those godawful tacky faux-fur lined hoods had a broken zipper, and although the bus was heated she still clutched the nasty thing tight around herself. He continued to stare and saw that her hands were bright red and cracked. Probably his age, mid-twenties or so, and like him she didn't look a day younger. Compared to the glaringly beautiful bartender, barmaid, and every last one of the server girls, this wretch was _clearly _destined for back-of-house work. Was it her bad skin? Or maybe it was her cagey eyes that kept her in the kitchen.

Still, though, there was an irresistible, subtle energy that pulsed along her ley lines that Murdoc could feel as sure as he felt the beat of his own eager heart.

As they were jolted along the crumbling streets Murdoc continued to watch her from under his black fringe. Further and further away the bus pulled them from the pub, and before long he witnessed her anger soften to a sort of forlorn sadness as her eyes strained purposefully out the window. Was she willing the scenery away, faster and faster like Murdoc did sometimes? The tension in her face and body bent her awkwardly, like a lone, misshapen coat hanger in a motel closet.

"Hard day, eh?" he asked with a knowing yet mischievous grin. The girl didn't look at him, and he didn't blame her, really; lots of weirdos and drug-crazed fiends rode on public transport these days. Not at all discouraged by her inattention he continued to leer as her face darkened and she clenched her hands into fists in her armpits. Hardly a man to be deterred by, well, _anything_, the bassist tried again.

"I'm Murdoc, leader of that little outfit you heard tonight." Did she glance at him? If she did it was too fast for him to be sure. Still, he continued to smile and licked his lips. "Y'know, you look like you might have a sweet tooth, just like me," he suggested and grinned even wider when she finally met his eager stare.

"Is tha' so?" she challenged in a heavy accent.

"Oh yeah, love," he drawled.

"I'm no' holdin' an' I don' 'ave any money if tha's wot you're after," she snarled and crossed her arms even more tightly around herself.

"Who said I was lookin' for money?" he countered playfully. "What if I just want some company?" he suggested and went so far as to nudge her foot with his. She glared at him and pulled her legs sharply under the bus seat.

"Sod off."

"Not like that, love. Unless, of course, you fancy a shag," he couldn't help but add with a lude cackle. The muscles in her jaw flexed. "Alright, just your name then," he encouraged in as warm a voice as he could muster.

After a minute he chuckled and moved to sit next to her. "Those birds in there are bloody tedious, aren't they?" he whispered in a sub rosa tone. She seemed to debate for a moment whether to respond or not before she turned to face him.

"Why're you botherin' me?"

Normally Murdoc might have responded in jest, or even continued in his lecherous, one-sided banter. Instead he met her brown eyes with a steady gaze of his own, still manic and always cheeky, but maybe she'd see it in the way his mouth quirked down at just the corners, or the way he gripped the edge of the hard bus seat - maybe she'd see that he was very rarely serious, but for whatever reason he would make a brief exception tonight.

"Can you blame a bloke?" he finally asked in a low, gruff voice and tried his damnedest to make the rare surge of genuine sentiment show on his face. Finally she huffed and unclenched her fists. Then, grudgingly:

"_Selene_, I'm Selene."

XXXXX

"_Bloody _nigh' lines a'ways skip my _bloody _stop," she muttered darkly under her breath as they swung off the bus.

Murdoc had had a sort of wondering respect for her already, but then she'd sprung up, seemingly out of nowhere, and started to cuss and scream at the driver in a proper accent even _he _could barely understand; and, well, that's when he _really_ started to enjoy the evening.

As the bus belched exhaust and continued on its grumbling way Murdoc caught the rude gesture the disgruntled driver made in their general direction. Still cursing, Selene led the way back the way they'd come, south along the murky coast.

Up close, the girl was every bit as strange as she seemed from a distance - all awkward angles and peculiar inconsistencies. It wasn't that she was sweet, or especially insightful, or anything like that; actually, it might've been more because she wasn't_ any_ of those things at _all_.

"Your band's a might rubbish, y'know," she informed him as he knocked two cigarettes out of his crumpled soft pack.

"No need to remind me, love."

The longer he was around her the more he appreciated her sloppy, grungy look; he liked how her faded, torn up jeans fell formless around her hips, how one leg was rolled up above her ankle whereas the other one was already wet up to the knee from where it dragged along the ground. It all made him slip sideways, a bit out of his head.

Intent, he watched her jacket fall open as she lit her cigarette. All she had on underneath was a grubby white tank top - a straight-cut formless _gem_ of a garment that fell straight down and hitched on her belt buckle - but Murdoc could see something cheap and lacy peek up just above where the armhole cut off. Bizarrely illicit, too, was the way the neck cut deep enough to reveal her lopsided, poorly supported cleavage that jiggled loosely as she fumbled with her lighter. Overpoweringly sexual in an _offhand, dirty_ sort of way, she made Murdoc feel lightheaded and feverish, itchy to get closer and more handsy, more . . . _mouthy_.

"Watch it, you," she warbled, oh-so-amused after his foot caught on a chunk of concrete and, fucking distracted by her magnetic train-wreck-meets-cheap-porn _thing_, he'd almost gotten a makeover courtesy of the pavement which, by the way, looked like some _punk_ had taken a jackhammer out for a _fucking_ joyride.

"Watch it yourself, pet, I'll make sure you get a taste," Murdoc countered with a scowl, was about to make good on it, too, when Selene smirked, quirked an eyebrow, and pointed over his shoulder.

It seemed they'd arrived at her joyless apartment complex, which was probably the poorestsection of seaside living he'd ever seen. Her building was indistinguishable from all the other sodden, windowless heaps that seemed to sink in on themselves, slumped as it was between two other decrepit masses of plaster and cinderblock.

The side door was so swollen Selene had to use her combat boot clad foot to kick it open, the sound like a screaming rat as a flurry of limp, moist paint bits sloughed off like sick skin. The walls a yellow reminiscent of old pit-stains and the worn carpet a _lovely_ motel maroon, it wasn't so much the _look _of the hallway as the _smell_ that made Murdoc stop and frown. As they stepped inside the warm stench of boiled chicken, cheap smokes, and wet newspaper - the timeless reek of interminable poverty - slurped him up into swirling, ugly memories of when he was a little boy with dirty black hair and unnatural eyes.

It's sickening, really, the things grown-ups do while the doors are cracked late at night. Maybe his dad didn't know Murdoc was listening? But, agonizingly lonely, sounds kept him company when he couldn't sleep; like the murmur of the telly downstairs or the halting gurgle of Hannibal's snores that came from the bed next to his. Seemed welcoming, yeah? Tricky when you're little, figuring out what's safe and what isn't. See, _poor people smell_ used to get caught under the covers with them, used to get warm with Hannibal's breathing.

Hell, Murdoc wasn't embarrassed to admit he used to love his brother - used to seek him out, in fact. Didn't last long, though, did it? Just as well.

_Fuck_, Murdoc hated that smell.

Without a word he followed Selene through the hall to the stairs where they climbed up to the third floor.

"So do you pay extra for the lovely oceanside apartment with a view?" Murdoc couldn't help but comment sarcastically as they approached the door to the corner apartment.

"Does i' fuckin' look like I pay extra for a bloody _view_?" she replied scathingly as she shoved her key into the scratched up lock. Unapologetic, Murdoc chuckled.

It was, without a doubt, the smallest fucking apartment he'd ever seen.

The only free wall to the right as they walked in was filled with books. With a red, wandering eye Murdoc took stock of some familiar titles and noticed that nearly all of their spines were cracked. The rest of the room contained nothing but a chest of drawers and a large grey, lumpy, thread-bare couch. Even so, there wasn't an excess of space. The couch didn't face a telly, as she didn't appear to own one. Instead, it faced a sliding door that was knocked completely out of its tracks and led out to a sagging balcony. Murdoc smiled - there was no view to speak of, just fog brownish with pollution and distant city light.

On the other side of the apartment was a little cubby that seemed to serve as a kitchen. There was barely enough room to turn around in there, Murdoc saw, and next to that there was a door - fancy that - which led, he guessed, to the toilet.

Selene brushed past him and pulled off her lumpy hat. Eyes drawn from his survey of her tiny studio, Murdoc smirked at the shoddily executed poor-girl punker bowl cut, greasy from kitchen heat and stinking of corned beef fat. It was a strangely alluring,_ meaty_ smell that made his mouth water. She ran her hand through it as if to pull out a big angry fistful. It was a brusque, reflexive act, like she knew she was ugly, but didn't care to care.

Yeah, that was it: that rebelliously repressed self-consciousness was what drew Murdoc to her when she first burst out of the kitchen through the dingy butler doors, obviously determined to reach the street without a glance at the mirror of the world. The whole brief scene probably looked a lot like how she might brush her teeth in the morning - savage and quick as spit, eyes trained down to the crusty drain glutted with hair, with not a glance at the thing before her spattered with gunk and smudged with oily fingerprints.

"So, ah, do you want a taste then, love?" Murdoc asked as he fingered the bag in his jacket pocket.

"I alrea'y told you, I don' 'ave any money," she snarled and stalked into the kitchen. Murdoc trailed behind her and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb as she pulled out a cloudy glass from the cupboard and filled it with tap water. As she chugged it down he found his eyes drawn to her throat, taut and working furiously. He licked his lips. Since she seemed intent on ignoring him, Murdoc made his way over to the little coffee table and began to assemble a few perfectly straight white lines. "Did you fuckin' 'ear wot I said?" she barked when she saw what he was doing.

Before she had a chance to run at the feral look in his eyes he had one hand in her shirt and the other around her wrist. After a violent struggle he managed to wrestle her down on the couch with him.

"_Listen_, I don't _want_ any _money_," he started to say but she wouldn't have it.

"Yeah but sex'll be jus' fine, righ'? I ain' some whore." Under her furious expression Murdoc could tell she was incredibly uncomfortable. Annoyed, the devilish bassist didn't feel like remedying that at the moment. Instead, he decided to stare lecherously at her chest. "Creep," she growled. He smirked.

"Nah, I'm just an honest bloke is all," he said and leaned down to scent her. Then, in her ear, "Selene, if you don't want to fuck, we won't fuck, yeah? Simple as that." Then he jumped off her, quick so she couldn't lay into him, and slipped into the bathroom to take a leak.

Just to be safe he spent an extra minute or two in there, gave her some time to get itchy around the lines he'd done up on the table. Then, cautious, he cracked the door open to peak outside. Call it a momentary lapse in judgement -

As soon as he eased the door out of its frame it went and crashed back onto his nose.

"_Fucking hell_!" he yelled as he got knocked back and, off balance, took the towel rack off the wall in a graceless scramble to catch his fall. "Bitch!" he howled as he landed on his bum, a dry shower of plaster dusting down from the two gaping holes in the wall.

"Tha's for manhandlin' me," he heard her say as she edged her way into the bathroom. Murdoc felt his nose gingerly. It was painful to the touch but it wasn't bleeding and it wasn't broken. He glared up at her, but to his surprise she looked neither angry nor smug. "Does it hurt much?" she asked plainly and crouched down to examine his nose. A tear escaped his eye from the pressure and he rubbed it away angrily. Selene pretended not to see.

"Nah it's fine," he ground out. Before their eyes could meet Selene leaned in to just taste Murdoc's lower lip.

"Did'ya mean wot you said?" she asked.

"Of course I bloody meant what I said." She tasted like warm, metallic tap water and cigarettes when she kissed him again.

"Awright, c'mon then, get up off the floor ya big baby," she breathed against his lips.

XXXXX

Three days.

Three days of a speed-induced sex frenzy with no sleep and no food except a piece of dry toast here and there and a glass of cheap, plastic-y orange juice with a splash of vodka to wash the taste of sex away.

Once he finally got his hands and mouth on her Selene became like something half animal, half _fucking_ elemental; and once he was inside her there was nothing human left about the woman either; except, of course, her strange and awkward body. Stripped bare, one leg over the top of the couch and the other braced on the floor littered with cigarette butts from a toppled ash tray they knocked over in their eager, biting hast, Murdoc licked, squeezed, and kissed away all her inhibitions until a red flush bloomed over her chest and streaked up her neck, tendons outlined with strain as she grit her teeth and made angry, animal noises, nails dug deep into his neck and back.

It drove Murdoc to a lustful insanity he'd never experienced before when she twisted and writhed against him, pushed into his feverish body with feral want as he worked his fingers inside her. It wasn't enough to pull her hair or lick her dark brown, pointed nipples. It wasn't _nearly _enough.

And once she swallowed him up into the depths of her body and held him there with her powerful legs Murdoc became just like her - inhuman, animal, elemental. It actually scared him how intense and hard, disturbingly forceful he became when she started to moan with his cock sucked deep inside of her. Wherever his big hands gripped her there were blue and yellow bruises, and when he squeezed her breasts he felt a terrible, dark compulsion like he wanted to crush them in his fists.

Over and over they did this, never tiring of each other's mouths and hands and bodies.

And in between frantic bouts of fucking it was just how Murdoc liked it - completely covered by a dirty sheet, pressed uncomfortably close together with muted late afternoon sunlight that seeped in hot and red - it all felt just as primal and intimate as if they shared a womb there on the couch.

It was like that on the third day, everything surreal from drugs and lack of sleep. Under the sheet the air smelled hot and human like sex, body odor, alcohol, and bad morning breath, and as he lay against her with his face tucked into her breasts he felt the sticky-wet of her sweaty skin pull at the itchy scrape of his scruffy, unshaved face. Humming, Selene worked her hands into his hair. He knew what she wanted: nothing so pretty as _oral sex_ - that was for married couples and adventurous prudes. She wanted him to _taste _her, wanted his mouth on her, wanted him to kiss and suck her _there_ until it was all too _fucking_ much.

Eager to oblige, Murdoc was halfway down to the warm, hidden cove between her legs when he was overcome with heady intuition.

"Selene," he murmured, "tell me something about your life. Y'know, someone you know or your mum or something," he requested in a gruff voice. Propped up on her elbows, she wrapped her legs over his back, ankles hooked, and squeezed.

"Why're you askin'?" she finally answered after examining his face, in search of a trap.

"Humor me love," he suggested and dipped his long tongue into her bellybutton, slapped her tits around gently.

"I don' remember me mum _or_ me dad, an' 've go' no friends," she breathed and bit her lip.

"At work, then," Murdoc pushed his face into her lower belly and squeezed her nipples. She moaned and he felt her toes curl against his back.

"Everybody leaves me well enough alone, 'ere's really nothin' ta say about 'em."

"Where'd you live before this?" Brown eyes met his.

"'nother apartment. Listen, you," she cut him off as he opened his mouth. "Wot're you on about?" she demanded. "You're givin' me a ba' feelin' in the pit o' my stomach. Drugs got you funny?" she inquired and rolled Murdoc onto his back. Straddling him she looked like a common prostitute - she was bruised where Murdoc handled her roughly, various oddly shaped hickies spattered the length of her naked body like blood, and her hair poked out in clumps and shone with oil. When she smiled it _looked_ crooked and forced even though Murdoc could _feel_ it was genuine. Blue bags under her eyes stood out against her pale, pink splotched skin, and Murdoc was still fascinated by how crooked and crowded her teeth were. Taken separately, shouldn't all of this and more have made her ugly? And yet Murdoc couldn't look away, she was stunningly beautiful, rough and striking like sandstone. "Jus', stop askin' stupid questions," she commanded as she lowered her hips over his face.

Murdoc moaned and wrapped his strong arms around her shapely hips as she gripped his head between her thighs and his hair in tight fists.

"Oh God," she grit out as her hips jerked spasmodically. Murdoc looked up at her, eyes hooded with lust. She tasted so good, like salt and musk and something undefinable.

If he could, he would've held her there forever.

XXXXX

A little later, Selene was slumped over him, still in a haze while she played idly with his inverted cross.

"I need to take a piss," he told her and made to leave.

"Murdoc, why were you askin' those questions?"

The bassist stopped and gripped her thigh, ran his big hand up to the crease of her bum. Well, he considered carefully, the truth was that for a few moments the world had turned inside out and he'd been convinced that none of this was real, just a horribly lucid dream; and she, Selene, had been just as unreal, like a hologram transmitted from another universe.

What it meant, he hadn't a clue.

"No reason, pet, just needed another line, yeah?" he lied as he met her gaze unflinchingly. Before she could push him further he heaved himself up and stumbled off to the washroom. While he sighed in relief and ashed in the toilet bowl, Selene hailed him through the open door:

"Oi, y'know, don' you feel like we've me' before or somethin', though?" she insisted. "Like, when we were small or somethin', school maybe?" she wondered out loud. Murdoc snorted.

The only thing Stoke on Trent's abysmal education system bestowed on the young Murdoc Niccals was the unbelievably _tedious_ discovery of his acid intellect. Those public institutions were the veritable bowels of his neighborhood, where little children went to get chewed up and shit back out into the gutter. Introducing Murdoc into that system was like trying to push a massive square block of some immutable material through a cylindrical sewer line already clogged with hopeless children, inept educators, and overpaid administrators with their heads so far up their arses they actually looked _normal_.

"Erm, I doubt it _strongly_, love," he replied as he came to lean on the doorframe, the last of his supply of meth gripped tight in one hand.

If they did know each other from somewhere he knew it couldn't have been at a school - he was never there. Beyond fostering a lifelong distaste for anything too serious, Murdoc soon realized it was in his best interest to spend as little time in a classroom as possible. A hasty decent into delinquency followed, and he found his life much enriched: he smoked cigarettes, drank, experimented with drugs and sex, and in general introduced himself - jovially and with much gusto - to the darker flavors of life.

Sprawled back on the couch, a wide smirk on his face, he watched Selene snort one of the lines he had assembled on the coffee table, still sticky from a toppled glass of orange juice.

"Actually, I feel like you might've been my sister in a past life," he mused out loud after he finished what remained of his best product; _probably_, he thought in the back of his mind, _way too much after a binge like this_.

"Wot, not in 'is one?" she challenged with an erotic smirk. A delicious thrill of depraved lust cut through Murdoc's gut.

"This one, eh?" he echoed back wonderingly and took his time to stub out the last of a ciggy while they eyed one another hungrily. Drawn back together, he grabbed and squeezed her hips as she slid over to straddle his lap.

_Sister_, he though with a shiver. Mad with it, just the _idea_ of it, Murdoc's pulse tried to burst through his heated, tingling skin as he bit her shoulder, neck, ear. The way she raked her fingernails through his hair and down over his shoulderblades made him want to be rough again. They kissed too deeply to speak, so he slid one hand between her legs and another down the knobby slope of her spine. If she wanted it to hurt he knew just what to do.

Stained dark with evening she never looked away as he rubbed his thumb back and forth over her swollen little nub and dipped his fingers into her warm, sticky wet. When he palmed the sensitive dip at the small of her back and dug his fingers into her bum with his other hand she let her knees slip further apart and moaned husky into his ear.

Her rough hands squeezed his shoulders as she arched, ugly and wanton, to push her heavy, pendulous breasts into his face. Speeding like crazy, Murdoc dragged his tongue and teeth over one peaked, eager nipple before he began to suck. Through a fringe of dirty black hair he watched her face as she bit her bottom lip and murmured dirty encouragement.

"Murdoc, 've neve' done it like 'is b'fore," she groaned as he slipped his pussy-wet fingers further back to massage that other, forbidden spot proper girls didn't like to touch.

"Oh? Then we'll take it slow. To start," he growled and worked a nipple between his teeth.

"No' too slow, yeah?" she countered as he pushed in a bit further. When he added a second finger she began to shake with the strain, and for some reason it made him almost nauseous with want. He needed her like that, still in pain, still quivering tight and not quite ready.

Fuck, if it didn't feel good for her at first it would in a moment, right?

In a hot, claustrophobic delirium he wrapped an arm tight around her to keep her still, rubbed his tip against her there, and jerked upwards with an angry grunt. Oh, sweet Satan, he thought for sure that was it as he popped in and she screamed, her hips at a cockeyed angle with the pain of it. Stiff and frozen, squeezed tight around him like a vice, Murdoc felt the sweat start to bead between them.

"Bloody 'ell it 'urts," she sobbed out between clenched teeth.

"Take it, darling, and catch up quick 'cause this is heaven," he mumbled agianst her tits and tried to think about something else, for both their sakes.

It started off a bit awkward as her muscles learned to work that new angle, learned how to work that new, aching pressure. Murdoc lost track of time as they mumbled curses to one another, hands and lips coaxing, bodies slipping slow.

Finally, _finally_ Selene nestled into him, arched in invitation. With a grateful groan Murdoc squeezed her bum and bumped up into her.

The rhythm began halting and needy, but as the sensation burned them up sinful hot Selene changed, morphed again into yet another demoness that Murdoc did not recognize as she sucked his fingers, a dark light deep in her eyes as she placed them against her gushing cunt.

Unnatural in its fury, her orgasm frightened him, made him bite her hard on the neck to subdue her so that he could stay inside her just a few moments longer, just long enough to get there too, eyes hooded and not-quite-locked, the last light that fades from day to night.

XXXXX

After that, out of meth and exhausted like only speed freaks can comprehend, Selene kissed him and made one request.

"I know you need ta leave soon, bu' promise me you'll stay here 'til I wake up." Murdoc promised, not an empty thing, and the two finally fell into a horribly deep sleep.

The next day Murdoc woke first with the desperate pang of nicotine-addicted need lodged in his chest. Not quite awake and otherwise indifferent to the integrity of the decrepit porch, Murdoc stumbled out through the broken sliding door and lit up one of his last cigarettes. Nobody ever liked a come down, but he'd learned how to bear through it, just like an alcoholic can weather even the worst hangover. It felt good to breathe the smoke in and out of his lungs, so he focused on that instead of the awful, crawling itch.

In the early morning light the ever-present fog had turned grey and everything was thick with ocean air. The sting of salt water on Murdoc's tongue stirred him somehow, and as he stood and listened to the surf a harmony started to write itself in his chest. Clearer and clearer it sounded as it made its way up towards his eardrums until Murdoc ached for the unwritten melody.

Odd how the riff came alive and pulled him out to sea, stranded him there under the brightening stars as the fog thinned and the sky darkened.

Out there on the water he rocked with the waves and the sky and the ocean stretched away endlessly in all directions so that the two dark surfaces, one dotted with sharp points of ancient light and one glistening diffusely yet brightly in reply, looked like two parallel planes that grew closer and closer together until . . . well, infinity never was a concept Murdoc could grasp.

Before long he found his feet back on solid ground above the street at Selene's tiny flat, unnatural eyes trained up at the fading stars with the salty taste of ocean lodged in his throat.

After a hallucination like that Murdoc was more inclined to bolt than keep his promise.

It felt silly to leave a note, so instead he made sure to tuck the sheet over her shoulders and leave a glass of orange juice on the end table where she'd see it when she woke.

In a state, Murdoc bought a pack of cigarettes from a dingy corner store and walked all the way back to the pub. Of course his car was gone, but he pounded on the kitchen door until someone opened up in order to get his bass back. After much shouting Murdoc had his instrument. There was still his amp to consider, but after he passed that idiot nearly _all _the fucking cash he had on hand Murdoc finally had a promise that his most expensive piece of equipment would be locked up for safekeeping until the he could come around later to retrieve it.

Perched on the kerb outside, Murdoc tried to play the riff he'd heard in the hallucination. What, _what_ could be the bloody problem? The notes were right, there he was on the edge of the _fucking_ earth with nothing but endless ocean to inspire the vivid memory from less than an hour before, and like a bad joke each note fell_ flat_ and _dull_ against the white-grey fog.

Frustrated beyond reason, Murdoc finally slung his bass out into the tall grasses. Let some other son of a bitch make it play proper.

On a blind, aimless walk through labyrinthine city streets, lost to the shallow, scratchy depths of withdrawal, the insanity began to mount, angry like raw bruises and hot-wet thunderclouds.

Even so, it wasn't hard to tell when everything went . . . _off_. Impossible heat flashed across his skin, and then a sensation like he'd been turned inside out and flipped upside down left him standing right where he'd been not a moment ago, but facing the opposite direction. Head tilted skyward he witnessed a front of roiling storm clouds roll in to shroud the glassy buildings, just like how they did in time-lapse photography.

Other oddities, like he could feel the whole city start to pulse and throb like a living thing, and even though there were no people in sight he could _smell_ them - a million scents blended like too many colors that turn an ugly, sinister brown.

Rooted to the spot, literally unable to move, the sound of wind through dead leaves crackled and burned through his senses, made his toes curl and the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up.

He could no more use his mouth to speak than he could use his legs to walk. A horrifying sound like the ringing in your ears after an explosion purified his senses so that the ensuing silence, blinding like stage lights, muffled even the beat of his own heart.

"It is rare to find a soul so willing these days." It was not a voice - there was no _character_ to it, no dimension. No, these words were a _thought_, placed very deliberately into his normally tightly guarded headspace. "Quite rare." Like a shadow cast in a room with no bodies it was easily fingered as foreign, _wrong_.

"Diligence, persistence, patience - _virtues_, dear Alphonse, that _God_ has given to all mankind with which to build his palace here on Earth. I hear them when you play - they are not enough, are they? There is something else, something greater that you covet?" Murdoc, still frozen, let the potential he felt deep inside glow and pulse and grow. An affirmation.

"Ah yes, this - so lovely - a sound so powerful it will bend the world to its will. You'll rot without it." All around the thought resonated, terribly voracious like the way water rushes to fill even the tiniest fissures, until every last window in all the buildings burst, all at once. Little shards caught in his hair and eyelashes, fell into a shattered mirror around his feet, reflected the narrow fissure of ash grey sky that shone between the tall buildings.

As immediate and all-encompassing as the moment came it disappeared, and the silence settled thin and unnatural over the street, glittering with glass. Murdoc's paralysis broke with the buildings, and he raised a hand to touch the inverted cross around his neck.

This time the thought was a real voice, unremarkable, one that spoke quiet and close, _sweet_, even. "Everyone destined for greatness knows what _you_ know, what _Faust_ knew."

The quiet and the infinite stillness lodged in Murdoc's chest like a great tidal wave that would never break. Unfrozen, he turned and beheld the end. He took a step. The unseen leaves crunched under his feet and it was all he could hear - not the sound of his breath, or even the beating of his own heart, just the leaves beneath his feet. At the edge of the world he stopped.

The precipice overlooked a waterless ocean, but still somehow he heard waves crash against the chalk-white stone. It was strange how it tried to warn him away, like the roar of sound in a man's ears almost out of breath held under water.

Still, he was willing. Without another moment's hesitation Murdoc jumped.

XXXXX

Was time yet a possibility? Even so, it seemed an endless moment passed before Murdoc opened his eyes, jolted obnoxiously by the speeding subway car. He sat up out of his slumped position and took stock. All around him stood business men and women on their way home from work, it seemed. He, the grimy, haggard man sitting in the corner, stood out like a cock in a hen house. Every once in a while someone cast a sidelong glance his way. On any other day he might have responded with a sinister, pointy smile, but he was gripped by a strange sense of calm urgency now.

With unaccustomed clarity Murdoc sat absolutely still until the fifth stop. Upon exiting the station he took the stairs two at a time. He turned left at the top and strode quickly and confidently down the busy street. People moved out of his way, crossing signals switched to 'walk' as he approached, and it seemed as if the entire world parted to allow his inexorable pilgrimage to _that place_.

The ocean was miles away, and yet he could hear the pounding of the waves against his straining eardrums. Heart beating fast, he reached that terrible point again. Now absolutely still, he waited for the next instinctual clue to dawn over the horizon of his mind.

There! He heard it, he actually _heard_ it. Through a crowd of people Murdoc saw an old homeless man crouched arthritically on a bed of dingy coats. His hat was upturned on the ground in front of him, filled with bills and coins. As he strummed a gleaming bass the old man hummed a hoarse, familiar tune. The excitement that gripped Murdoc was amazing.

"El Diablo! It's mine, let me have it!" The old man turned his yellow eyes to Murdoc's, two-toned and shining with greed.

"Yes. But tell me, dear _Faust_, to whom do you pledge your undying allegiance?" he inquired genially, with a small smile.

"You've got my soul, haven't you? Hail _bloody _Satan, you old git."

As he slid the strap over his shoulder he felt power radiate from the instrument. With a metallic clink his gold inverted cross knocked against the evil red of the heavy V-neck. Murdoc closed his eyes, let his hands settle over the icy strings, and began to play.


	4. Novelty

**A/N** **I know that Murdoc got Cortez in Mexico after the first album, but I couldn't resist. Don't let that fact confuse the timeline I intimate elsewhere. **

**nov·el·ty **

**noun**

**The quality of being new, original, or unusual - a**** new or unfamiliar thing or experience.**

"Oi! Dent face! Get your arse outta the bloody fridge," Murdoc growled from the doorway. Various glass condiment bottles, most of them filled with unidentifiable and/or questionable contents, clanked heavily together as 2D jumped in surprise. "I said move it, wanker!" was the repeated demand as his bandmate, clad only in a pair of white briefs, strode over.

Despite his sweaty, wilted condition, (hence his current residency in their friendly neighborhood refrigerator), 2D froze.

Something about the weather – all sticky and hot and oppressive – put him in a dirty state of mind. He'd spent the morning with his lower half shoved deep in the fridge while his lanky torso hung over the top of the door dreaming about Murdoc's thick, crooked fingers and scathing glare. Maybe his lips, too, in a not-so-respectable place that would cause him to make not-so-respectable noises.

As it was, 2D found himself in a bit of an awkward predicament at the moment. Murdoc advanced in slow motion while 2D's brain, not necessarily a riot of thought or cognitive process, revolved adamantly around just one simple, essential fact: behind the refrigerator door his pajama bottoms were largely and obviously tented with a stiffy he solemnly wished would take a goddamn vacation already.

Unlike a certain bassist, 2D didn't usually walk around in his knickers, and so he hadn't quite mastered the art of rapid stiffy stifling – not that Murdoc had never been caught at half-mast before, (nothing made the keyboardist blush harder) – the demonic man just didn't seem to give a fuck, shameless as he was.

Embarrassed, 2D closed the door over himself as far as it would go. Murdoc's eyes narrowed when he didn't rush away immediately.

"'ey Muds," said 2D in a high, nervous voice and bit his lip. On the refrigerator door his knuckles were white from the panicked grip he had on the only thing between himself and utter humiliation. To his dismay the rush of fear only made him even more achy and hard, if that were possible.

"Bugger off, tusspot." The bassist did not look pleased as he planted his feet in a wide stance in front of 2D – eyes glassy, hair mussed, all sweaty and intoxicated and obviously up to no good.

"I, I don' fink there's any beer in 'ere," 2D finally managed. Murdoc quirked an eyebrow and cracked his knuckles.

Well, that was about all the warning he'd ever get, so it was with a panicked laugh and a rush of hot desperation that 2D grabbed a pack of breakfast ham from the side door and slipped out with Sainsbury's finest in front of his crotch.

"Good boy," mumbled Murdoc as he bent over to scrutinize the contents of the fridge.

In a flash 2D was out of the kitchen and on his way back through the muggy concrete corridors down to his room. Mortification, apparently, was on the menu these days. It was such a thrill – the fear, the pain, the fucking _shame_ made him blush, but really it all felt the same. Humiliation was just like the sharp taste of blood from a split lip: mildly horrifying yet impossible to leave alone.

XXXXX

Anyway, there was never any lazy golden afterglow. Murdoc always got him worked up proper . . . but afterwards he always felt rather like a pathetic tosser, so stupid and empty. The weight in his gut held him still on the bed while he contemplated more painkillers.

It was in that humid, static hush when 2D first heard a faint humming that sounded from the general vicinity of the carpark.

Loath to put on pants in this weather, 2D reluctantly sat up and yanked on a pair of knee-length wrinkled khaki cargo shorts. Cigarette lit and his favorite camouflage fishing hat in place he went to investigate the strange noise. Maybe it was coming from Murdoc's Winnebago?

Sure enough, the sound filled the carpark but it's origin was obvious – Murdoc's beloved Winnie. But what was it? Before he could work up the necessary courage to knock, Murdoc flung the door open wide.

"Ow!" 2D yelped as the door smashed into his forehead. He heard Murdoc snicker as he stumbled back.

"Gotcha, brainache," Murdoc said gleefully, all jagged teeth and leering, two-toned eyes.

2D was about to complain about this neverending game Murdoc liked to play with him, but then he noticed the bubble of cold air that floated out from the open door. He looked up at Murdoc, now fully dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a black t-shirt.

"Muds! You 'ave a fan!"

"Course I do, moron, you think I'm going to _languish_ in this rotten weather?" he sneered.

"Well, d'you fink I could come in?" he asked hopefully, but Murdoc was already out on the step and about to shut the door.

"You must be joking," Murdoc scoffed, seemed to notice the crestfallen look in 2D's eyes that meant he definitely _wasn't_ joking, then turned and poked the wilted singer in the chest. "Look, you, I'm off to get more beer and if you so much as _crack_ this door, Cortez will be on you like a fly on shit. I like to indulge his sweet tooth on occasion, _if you know what I mean_, and he'd peck out what's left of your sorry eyeballs quicker than," he snapped his fingers in his mate's face. As if on cue, the sound of wings flapping wildly in a confined space and some manic squawking emanated from inside the Winnie. 2D blanched.

"Don' worry Muds, I won' go in there," he said and stepped back. "Can I, can I come wif you ta the store? 'm low on ciggies," he lied.

"It's a mile to the bus, you have long legs," Murdoc muttered as he locked the door and trudged over to his car. The front was still a mess from the crash a year-and-some before.

"I's, like, a bill-ion degrees out there!" he objected in a squeaky falsetto. Murdoc didn't walk like he was trashed, but 2D knew he had to be getting there when he couldn't quite get the key in the lock. "I'll buy, and you can 'ave some o' me pills," 2D offered.

"Listen, I can help myself to _your pills _anytime I please; _you owe me_," Murdoc growled.

"I know you don' 'ave any bleedin' money," 2D insisted and tried to quirk a smile in the face of Wrath itself. Murdoc slammed his fist against the rusted-up frame of his Vauxhall Astra.

"_For the love of Satan_," he said in a strained voice and sighed. Finally he got the key in and the door open. "Fine!" he barked before he got in, "but none of your mindless prattle, I'm not in the mood."

XXXXX

Certainly anyone with even half a brain – 2D included – could grasp the gravity of the situation if ever they were stranded with an intoxicated, ill-tempered Murdoc Niccals on the side of the road in 100 plus degree heat. It was eerie, the way he just sat there, absolutely still, with a look like imminent insanity stretched across his face. 2D bit his lip and hugged the recently acquired brown bag to his chest.

He'd been so good, not a word had slipped past his lips for the entire trip, his card didn't get rejected when he bought Murdoc booze and a carton of Lucky Lung, and the bassist actually seemed somewhat . . . _unperturbed_ by 2D's presence – and now this.

It was all his fault; he knew that even before Murdoc turned that homicidal glare his way.

"It overheated," the currently very unbalanced man stated. Then, "it _overheated_ because _you_ had to crank the _fucking_ air," there was probably more, but after that only a strangled noise could make it out of Murdoc's throat. In a rare moment of self-preservation, 2D practically fell out of the Astra as his one-time caregiver lunged at him.

In truth, 2D _had_ turned up the air to max the whole way there and then, well, _almost_ the whole way back. Murdoc hadn't objected, of course, but that was hardly the point.

"Muds, don'!" 2D yelped as Murdoc stomped around the front of the car.

Quick and brutal, it was over almost as lightening quick as it began. 2D opened his eyes, vaguely aware that Murdoc was now a few meters away and looking down the long, empty road that led to Kong. 2D heard the match flare, and then the smell of sulfur drifted over. To stand now would just invite Murdoc's frustrated rage again, so instead he carefully stretched out his legs right there on the side of the road and fished his own pack out of his pocket. It hurt like bloody hell to take a pull. _Just like two lovers after a fuck_, he thought idly to himself.

A few minutes later Murdoc flicked his fag into the street and came to stand over the singer's prone body.

"Give me your cell," he grunted. 2D's heart sank.

"I – I – I don' 'ave it on me," he stuttered and covered his eyes as Murdoc cursed and kicked a cloud of gritty dirt in his face.

"Get up. We're walking." 2D hastily obliged. "The rum, you _sodding moron_," Murdoc growled scathingly as 2D walked away from the bag in the ditch.

It took just moments for Murdoc to pull off his shirt and drape it over his head and neck as they walked. A heartbeat later 2D followed his good example and secured his own shirt over his head with his hat.

"Give me that," Murdoc demanded harshly and swiped the alcohol out of 2D's hand.

Well on their way, 2D drifted into that particular frame of mind that wanders with your feet while you walk. Like, he wondered at the way the heat quivered up from the asphalt, and at the way Murdoc was able to drink and walk at the same time; oh, and at the wind that blew hot and soft like the breath of something alive.

He lit a cigarette and smiled again at the twinge of pain in his ribs.

XXXXX

By the time they trudged into the car park about an hour later, out of breath and miserably hot, the bottle was half gone. Murdoc's body shone with sweat, and 2D couldn't help but follow the little droplets with hungry eyes as they made their way down the curve of his spine to the waistband of his jeans.

With the Winnie in view the sound of the fan reached their ears. 2D brightened.

"'ey, at least your Winnie's cold, righ' Muds?" he ventured hopefully. An acid glare was all Murdoc threw over his shoulder. If he had to spend another second without a fan, 2D was sure he would die of heat stroke. "Please, Muds," he begged and grasped the Winnie door before Murdoc could slam it in his face. Furious, Murdoc whirled on him. For a moment, 2D thought for sure he was a dead man; but then something changed in Murdoc's eyes. Was it because he was all sweaty and covered in purple blossom bruises?

Without a word, Murdoc left the door wide open and disappeared inside.

Surprised, it took 2D a moment to step up and into Murdoc's most guarded private space.

Weird, broken memories tried to piece themselves back together in 2D's brain, muddled with heat and medication.

"D'you remember when we used ta 'ang out in 'ere all the time?" he asked Murdoc, who he could hear banging around in the bed area. 2D rubbed at his wet, messy hair after he pulled his sweat-soaked shirt off his head. Nervous, he balled the thing up in his hands. Where should he put himself?

The Winnie was messier than the last time he saw it: lots of empty bottles and beer cans all over, clothes piled up in corners (along with a few stray panties, 2D noticed), and a bullocks-load of _stuff_ scattered all over. It smelled like sex, nicotine, sweat, and old bottles of wine. 2D closed his eyes and inhaled deeply – he felt like he'd come home.

He'd miss that dark apartment Murdoc had before Kong, but it was here . . .

"Oi! Two dents, get over here," Murdoc called from the end of the Winnie. 2D jumped, startled, and tried to pick a quick path through all the junk. The older man always made him so nervous, like he was an awkward adolescent again.

His best mate sat at the edge of his unmade bed, a look of mild concentration on his face as he finished rolling up a big blunt. 2D's breath caught in his throat when the dark, sweat-slicked man looked up at him from under his bangs. His demeanor was altogether changed; he looked right _cheeky_. Although he ached from his earlier punishment, 2D still felt his heart swell with love and longing as Murdoc let that especially deranged, between-mates-only smile split his face. It was, the singer remembered, one of the few genuine expressions (other than anger, frustration, hatred, and other assorted _evil_ emotions, of course) that Murdoc shared only with 2D. The expression reminded him of something important, but he couldn't quite figure what. On the tip of his tongue, it made 2D ache to get closer, but he was too afraid.

Jarring 2D from his delicate reverie, Murdoc finally answered his absent-minded question from earlier.

"I remember, faceache." So wrapped up in the way Murdoc looked at him, 2D didn't even have the presence of mind to enjoy the way the cold air blew against his overheated skin. "At least, I remember how I used to get you shitfaced," Murdoc chuckled. "And I bet you're still a lightweight," he chastised. "Drink," he instructed and motioned with his head over to the bottle of rum on the nightstand littered with condom wrappers and cigarette butts. 2D acquiesced and took a sip. It burned going down.

"You promised me some of your headache pills, if I remember correctly," the bassist prompted before he dragged his long tongue over the freshly rolled blunt. Hypnotized, 2D didn't register his words.

Slowly, his mate lit up, stood, took a long, deep pull, then walked right up to 2D and backed him up to the wall until their bodies nearly touched. 2D could feel the heat radiate off of his olive skin. Murdoc let the smoke escape his mouth in a thick, seductive coil right in front of his face. 2D closed his eyes and breathed in longingly. In a low, unreservedly sexy voice, Murdoc repeated:

"Your headache pills: you promised me some." Close to hyperventilation, and acutely aware that he was about to pop a stiffy against his best mate's thigh, 2D blushed and slipped sideways out of Murdoc's intense gaze and made for the door.

Once safely in his room he pushed his erection down while he rooted around wildly for that little orange bottle he'd forgotten in his haste to join Murdoc on his trip into town. Panicky, he finally found it. Before he made his way back to the Winnie he took a few and washed them down with the rum he'd accidentally taken with him in his rush to escape.

As he approached the Winnebago door he half-expected Murdoc had locked him out. He hoped not, for although the sun had set, it was still hot as hell out there. He eyed the door and fingered the little bottle in his pocket anxiously. That, and there was something tight that pulled 2D back to his forbidden crush over and over again, something that hurt him more than words could describe when he was denied the evil man's intoxicating presence.

The door swung open and 2D breathed a deep, deep sigh of heartache indulged.

Back inside the entire space was hazy with skunky green smoke, and Murdoc had put on one of his sultry dub records.

"Here Muds," 2D handed him the bottle. Murdoc glanced at the label, naked yet again save his briefs.

"New ones, eh?" he questioned as he palmed a few and knocked them back dry.

"Don' take so many, Muds, I need 'em for tomorrow," 2D objected and snatched the bottle back. The bassist narrowed his eyes, but on this matter 2D had cause to be defiant. It didn't matter how hard Murdoc hit him, his headaches would always hurt worse. "They're right po'ent anyways, you don' need so many after drinkin' all day, yeah?" 2D said to placate his host. Fascinated, 2D watched as venom yet again shifted seamlessly into something else that, although no less sinister, was less immediately dangerous.

"Speaking of," Murdoc cocked his head at the rum still clutched in 2D's hand. "Come on, mate, catch up," he growled in that same low, almost-seductive voice that made the singer tingle in places he was trying to ignore. He took a sip. "Now, where to put you, pretty-boy," Murdoc mumbled to himself as he cast about the tiny space.

Eventually, seemingly for lack of any other options, 2D found himself situated at the foot of Murdoc's bed facing the grungy man, content to drape a forgotten sheet over his crooked knees. Back and forth they traded the blunt and the bottle until 2D felt like he was swimming around the little space even though he hadn't moved at all. At first he tried to ignore the insistent flood of arousal that wouldn't go away, but as the night wore on it seemed much more important to enjoy it, indulge it, like other appetites that would one day get him in too deep to stay afloat. His cheeks were rosy and his skin felt like it was on fire from the sticky bud as he let Murdoc's voice twist him up into tight knots of want.

One of the things he loved best about his mate was the way he told stories.

"So there was this one time, yeah, when you were out, and I tried to take you back home but no one would answer the bloody door. I dunno, y'know, maybe your mum and dad were too pissed to hear the ringer or, hehe, otherwise occupied . . . who knows. I really, I mean _I really_ wanted to leave you there on the stoop, but I think they would've thrown me in jail for sure then, yeah? Gross mis-negligence or some such nonsense?" He stopped to light a cigarette but 2D didn't take his eyes off of him; Murdoc _never_ told stories about that year, even though he 2D was morbidly fascinated by the topic. In truth, even if he was embarrassed on some level 2D still wantedto know every detail about their unconventional relationship. He imagined it could've been very intimate in a sick, twisted, abusive kind of way.

Maybe the pain pills were kicking in or something, because Murdoc started to slur his words as the story went on. "So, anyway," he continued and took a deep drag, "I had an ace bird in the car, your limp arse over my shoulder, and nowhere to _fucking_ leave you. So really, what would you've done, mate, eh?" When he didn't go on 2D realized he was actually expected to answer the question.

"Oh, erm, I dunno, like, maybe, leave me in the car or summfink?" 2D suggested. He was surprised to find his words were even more slurred than Murdoc's.

"Yeah, right," the bassist snorted, "and come back to find you an _icicle_ the next morning? If you _died_ on my watch, I'd be at Her Majesties pleasure for the rest of my life. Imagine, all this potential, _wasted_. No, there was no choice but to haul you back to the Winnebago." He paused, then: "you going to finish that, mate?" Murdoc gestured vaguely to the almost empty bottle 2D grasped loosely in his hand. 2D shook his head and passed it to Murdoc – he just couldn't bring himself to swallow any more rum. But the nearly naked man didn't indulge straight off. Rather, he got up, very unsteadily, and weaved his way into the other room. "Let's do this proper, yeah?" he chuckled darkly as he returned with two dingy shot glasses in hand. 2D shook his head.

"Nah, Muds, I can'," he protested and tried to swallow a hiccup at the thought of more alcohol.

"Oh, sure you can, 2D," Murdoc coaxed. Once resituated, Murdoc scooted to the middle of the bed, grabbed 2D's hand, and wrapped his fingers around the small glass. 2D groaned as the liquid sloshed into his and then Murdoc's glass. That about killed the bottle and Murdoc unceremoniously dropped it with a dull clunk to the floor. "Riiight then, here's to you, you dirty voyeur," Murdoc said in a deep, lascivious voice that sent chills up and down 2D's spine.

"Wo-, wot?" 2D stuttered as Murdoc clinked his glass against 2D's, and then easily knocked the amber liquid back like it was water.

"Go on, don't be rude," Murdoc nodded at the glass. After he took a deep breath, 2D tipped the glass back and forced himself to open his throat. Almost gagging, he gulped and let the tears leak at the corners of his eyes. "You're such a wanker," Murdoc mumbled as he reached for the blunt on the end table.

"Wait, wot were you on about, callin' me a dirty voyeur or whatnot," 2D insisted as he shoved the glass back at Murdoc.

"_The story_, dullard. Y'know, I gave brief," he chuckled, "or maybe _not so brief_, consideration to dropping you off at that homeless shelter – y'know the one around the corner where I used to park the Winnie," 2D nodded. "I could've easily swung by the next morning to pick you up, nobody any the wiser," he smiled evilly at 2D. "But the bird, no, she wouldn't hear of it. So, ah, _you know_," he coughed suggestively, "I brought you back and stuck you on the couch for the night. Quite a show you got, mate, really, I'm sorry you missed it," he finished and took a long pull off the severely diminished blunt.

2D almost couldn't pull himself together. Really, it wasn't particularly extraordinary, (in fact, it's a wonder it didn't happen more often . . . or maybe it did, what did 2D know?), but just the _thought_ of Murdoc – _Murdoc_, 2D thought with a soul-deep blush as he met those two-toned eyes that shone with a knowing glint behind that ever present snark – the _thought_ of him buried inside a naked woman, running his hands over her right in front of him, and maybe just a step away . . . 2D couldn't catch his breath. He was lightheaded, and the way he was hard under the covers made him think he could never be any other way ever again. Murdoc quirked an eyebrow as he passed 2D what was left of their blunt.

2D let the last of the herby smoke fill his lungs.

"Well?" Murdoc asked after 2D decided he never wanted to exhale. He coughed hard and let the warm wave crash over him.

"I dunno, Muds, I don' remember anyfing if tha's what you're wonderin'," he managed in a strangled voice.

"Really? Too bad, y'know," the bassist trailed off and let his eyes settle on 2D. "You really are too pretty for your own good," he said under his breath. That mischievous glint flashed brighter in his eyes in a way that made 2D hot with nervousness.

With a scratch the record came to a disruptive end. Murdoc really did look like the cat that got the canary then as he said, with barely concealed glee, "2D, _mate_, care to do the honors?" Could Murdoc see the fear in his black eyes?

Him? Get up . . . now? With a stiffy bigger even than that one time in the lockers with Arnold Punkin, the punk who failed year seven?

"Uh, no fanks Muds, you can pick," he stuttered, but Murdoc interrupted him with an evil grin.

"No, no, I _insist_." Unnatural eyes bore into him like hot coals.

There was no escape, he realized. A cold pang of fear drove his arousal up another notch.

"I's, i's jus'," he sputtered.

"I can practically _see_ the gears turning in your head, Stu. Very slowly, mind you," Murdoc muttered as an afterthought. 2D swallowed.

"I jus' wouldn' . . ."

"It's _strange_, innit," Murdoc cut 2D off, "how these pills don't make you drowsy, just sort of, y'know, warm?" A riot of emotion and confusion, 2D had no clue what the bassist was after so he only nodded and shrunk back further against the headboard. It seemed that Murdoc kept getting closer and closer. "Want to know something? When I did that smash and grab, erm, when I rammed my car into your face," as he said this he brought his hand up to touch the new bruise on 2D's jaw. He sounded amused, which was pretty much to be expected whenever he spoke about that night, but his fingers were firm and gentle when he turned 2D's face to the side by his chin. 2D closed his eyes. "It's funny, sometimes I don't remember it myself; but, ah, I think I might've gone a bit _mad_ when it happened. I couldn't stop laughing, but y'know? I really wasn't myself. Do you know what _ancient insanity _feels like? Bloody rough, alright? B_elieve me_, it isn't pretty."

"Muds . . . I don' 'ave a clue what you're on abou'," 2D finally admitted fearfully. His chin still in Murdoc's grip, the bassist responded:

"No, no I suppose you wouldn't have a clue about much these days, would you?" 2D was about to object when out of nowhere the bassist's lips were on his own.

Murdoc pushed him down with his mouth, and 2D went willingly onto his back underneath the demonic man. _This is a dream_, he thought, _or else I've finally died of an overdose_. The drunken buzz and unrelenting high bathed all his sensitive parts in tingling sensation as Murdoc stretched out and pressed his hard body into 2D's.

2D had been kissed before, but . . . the way Murdoc took his mouth, so _slow _and_ wet_ and _warm_ and deliciously _insistent_ made the singer insane with lust. To his wonder, Murdoc closed his eyes as he kissed him. In all of his dreams and all of his fantasies, Murdoc always kissed him with open eyes. But this . . . there was something about how _absorbed_ he was in the singer, like they were in _Murdoc's _dream and not 2D's.

It all made 2D swoon; it felt like he was falling into the sky as the dark man put both hands into 2D's hair and held him tight while he sucked on the singer's lips.

"Two dents," he finally spoke and 2D thrilled at the gruff sound. "Do you know I bloody love that gap in your front teeth?" he asked as he left suckling kisses on 2D's bottom lip; "more than your eyes, more than your hair, more than any of your other – " he stopped to chuckle "– awkward novelties." There was a brief silence when 2D just looked at Murdoc wonderingly.

"Wot's a novelty?" was all he could think to say. As Murdoc pulled back to glare he couldn't help but tongue his gap.

"What kind of pills _are_ you taking these days?" the intently focused man suddenly asked out of the blue. 2D couldn't help but laugh.

"Some kinda opiate I fink; why, feelin' funny?"

"I'm kissing _you_, aren't I?" Murdoc said in his usual _you're an idiot_ tone of voice, which 2D was very familiar with; but then he bent to lick 2D's cheek up to his hairline – _that_ was new. "Mmm," Murdoc hummed then laughed deep in his chest. Too shocked to react at first, 2D just propped himself up on his elbows and looked into his best mate's eyes.

"'ow many pills did ya take?" he wondered out loud.

"Enough, apparently," Murdoc breathed and licked along the tendon in 2D's neck.

"Oh," gasped 2D as he arched into the hot feeling that flooded his body and let his head fall back. "Muds, wot's 'appenin'?" he groaned.

"Just relax, I'll make you feel too good to care," Murdoc grunted and continued to lick at 2D's neck. "You want it on your hands and knees, you poof?" Murdoc mumbled almost incoherently into the curve of 2D's jaw.

"Wot? M-Muds, I've never done it wif a bloke before," he insisted. Murdoc laughed. "No really!" At the slight note of fear in his mate's voice, Murdoc raised his head, put his nose against 2D's, and stared intently at him.

"Well alright then, no need to get your knickers in a twist, let's just get starkers and roll around together for a while, see what happens," he suggested in a seductive yet somehow thrillingly nonchalant growl against 2D's ear. The singer shivered violently.

With just a few quick, practiced movements, Murdoc had removed his briefs. In lustful awe, 2D couldn't take his eyes off of the man's huge, thick length that bounced between his legs as he kneeled above him.

"Mmm, I like the way you look at me, love," Murdoc growled and started to stroke himself. Enthralled, 2D felt himself blush all over. "Hehe, I like it when you get all pink, too," Murdoc teased him with a grin. "Now get up and take off your clothes."

So self-conscious, yet nice and warm and giddy from the substances consumed, 2D stood up and peeled his pants off. Murdoc didn't try to hide the way he stared at the obvious, eager bulge in 2D's black briefs. "Those too, 'D," he said in a deep, husky voice.

Sprawled lazily against the far wall Murdoc squeezed and stroked his hard cock while he watched his best mate awkwardly remove his underwear. 2D thought it was agonizingly sexy the way he was so confident and sure of himself like that. "Come here, and quit looking like a nervous virgin," Murdoc chastised with hooded eyes as he wrapped his arms around 2D's middle and pressed his face into his soft, smooth abdomen. "I won't bite too hard," he mumbled against the younger man's sinfully hot body. "That's it, just feel it out," Murdoc encouraged as he guided 2D into easy submission.

It was embarrassing, the way Murdoc could make him gasp and whimper with his mouth over his nipples, like he was some kind of girl in his bed instead of a full grown man. He couldn't help it, though, Murdoc didn't nibble or coax – Murdoc sucked, bit, rubbed, _demanded_ that 2D feel good, or so help him Satan. It wasn't a game, it could hardly be considered recreational, either, the way he worked them both up into a haze of frenzied lust was deliberate, calculated.

For what felt like hours they pushed and rubbed their bodies together under the covers like they were two teenagers again, determined to relearn everything they already knew. It made 2D feel out of control with lust when Murdoc couldn't hold back his harsher instincts and bit him, held him down with his hand on his face, or in general just positioned the singer's body roughly wherever he wished like he was once again just a comatose doll.

"C'mon, pet, you need a good fuck, I can feel it," Murdoc mumbled heatedly into the small of 2D's back. The singer was on his stomach, his face buried in a pillow while Murdoc kissed and bit all around his hips and bottom. Big, calloused hands worked their way around 2D's middle to rub teasingly at his lower belly. Beyond the point of embarrassment, 2D rutted into the mattress and moaned. "It'll hurt like sin," Murdoc continued as he breathed against the backs of 2D's thighs. "But I know you like that, don't you? You want me to be _rough_, you want me to take you _hard_," he bit 2D on the inner thigh, "and _fast_," he bit his other thigh.

"Muds, 'ow are you doin' this?" 2D sobbed out in need as Murdoc slid his hands down from his belly and over his hips to grip 2D's upper thighs. Before he could stop him, the bassist yanked his legs wide apart and positioned himself between them so that 2D couldn't close his thighs. With a hedonistic grin the dark man pressed his mate down into the bed with a hand on the back of his neck and let his huge, leaking cock bounce lightly against his backside. "Please!" 2D moaned and arched back.

"Fuck, you're such a little slut," Murdoc groaned and fumbled in the night stand with his free hand for something slick. 2D was about to lose his mind; he just couldn't take it anymore as he grabbed himself and squeezed.

"Nnnnggg," he moaned.

"Hold on, 'D," Murdoc whispered, and then a pressure like he'd never experienced before made him cry out through gritted teeth.

Their new drummer never came down to the carpark, so when 2D screamed he didn't try to keep it quiet, didn't bother to stick a pillow in his mouth, never wondered whether they'd be caught.

It was impossible to keep track of time and space with burning pain like that. 2D's back was arched so hard he thought it might break, and his hands were white from their death grip on the sheets. For a horrible moment he thought he couldn't feel his legs anymore, like somehow Murdoc's brutal act had severed a nerve between his backbone and his brain; but no, he could bend them just slightly although the burning pressure-pain felt like a hot iron curtain that masked sensation all through his lower body. To say he felt split open would be an understatement.

"Muds," he finally managed, but when he tried to look back a pain shot through his lower back.

"For the love of Satan, don't move," Murdoc muttered in a weirdly strained voice. "Just stay still two dents, _fuck_." Slowly, so slowly, the pain got deeper and deeper until a thick, suffocating layer of pleasure started to take over the panting singer's overtaxed nerves. When his hips twitched involuntarily he heard Murdoc groan above him. Alive with aching sensation, barely able to breathe, 2D lifted hips so that Murdoc's cock slipped out a few inches, then impaled himself again.

"Ahhhohhhhh!" he moaned loudly. Murdoc gripped him tightly, and 2D could feel him continue to shake.

"Quit it, faceache," the demonic bassist hissed and pushed his mate's face into the mattress. After a few long, shuddering moments he let him go, put his hands on his hips, and started to pump slowly, not really pulling out at all, just rocking them together. "Mmm, there we go," 2D heard him sigh through a haze of lust. Then:

"2D, I can't even _move_ you're so bloody _tight_," the dark man grunted and dug his nails into 2D's skin. "Relax, let me pull out a bit," he ordered. 2D took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to relax. It was difficult, but soon he felt the strange sensation of Murdoc pulling out of him. It made a blush creep back over his features. "That's it," Murdoc moaned, then jerked back in with a heady moan. The pain was still there, but it only made the pleasure more potent.

Murdoc moved with more determination, gripped him tightly, then leaned down to press an open-mouthed kiss to the back of his neck. Suddenly, something red hot ripped through 2D. He made a wild, animalistic noise, tossed his head back, every muscle in his body flexed and on fire. "Oh, that's it love," Murdoc encouraged as he drove back against that spot. "Keep that up and I think you'll drive me out of my head, see?" he mumbled and bit the back of 2D's neck with a growl.

"Oh, oh, oh, Murdoc," 2D moaned desperately as the bassist began to piston in and out of him, always, _always_ returning to that spot. The dark man pummeled 2D's prone body until every nerve sang with it, until _2D_ sang with it – flushed with intense pressure, filled up beyond coherent thought, he couldn't get enough.

"Fuck, 'D," Murdoc groaned into his hair. Everything felt so close and so electric. When Murdoc reached down to squeeze him in a tight fist it was all over for 2D. He didn't even register what happened, it was just a burst of white noise in his mind and a feeling that was so good he couldn't help but cry out and writhe in the grip of inescapable pleasure.

Totally undone, his next conscious thought was of the way Murdoc twitched deep inside of him, groaned his name, and then violently, possessively wrapped his muscled arms around the singer's throat and chest as he exploded inside of him.

Nothing was real, everything was slow, and it wasn't until Murdoc slipped off to lie beside him, lighting two cigarettes for the both of them, that 2D could unclench his fists. For a long time they lay there, 2D on his belly and Murdoc on his back, with their legs still entwined on top of the mess of sheets amidst scattered pillows.

"Something weird is going on, 'D, I can feel it," Murdoc finally ground out in a daze as the smoke from his cigarette twisted into strange shapes above them.

"Yeah, I fink I feel it too, maybe" he offered quietly, "like 'm 'bout ta wake up or summfink."

"Here," Murdoc groaned and leaned across 2D to rustle around in the end table. The bassist's naked chest dragged over 2D as he sat back with a scrap piece of paper and a pen. With his eyes closed Murdoc jotted something down. "Don't look at it, 'D," he muttered when 2D, curious, propped himself up to look. His eyes still closed, Murdoc fumbled around on the floor for the rum they'd finished earlier, folded up the piece of paper, and then shoved it into the bottle. "Before you leave, take this with you." 2D glanced at him sideways like he was some kind of a nutter. "Don't look at me like that. Just . . . take it with you and stash it someplace random in your room. For later."

"Wots it say?" 2D asked.

"Well it's not a bloody love letter, if that's what you're thinking," Murdoc snapped at him. 2D shrugged.

"If 'm gon' ta keep it, why can' I read it?"

"_For the love of Satan_, dullard, just _trust_ me, _alright_?" Murdoc insisted, exasperated.

"Well alright," 2D conceded grudgingly as he took the proffered bottle and placed it gently with the rest of his clothes.

Then, still in awe, he hesitatingly shifted over and kissed Murdoc behind his ear. The bassist ignored him, but it was still so amazing to 2D that he could do this without his life coming to a quick and violent end. Not intending to let the novelty go to waste, he continued to kiss at his stoic mate's neck and ear until he again felt heavy with lust. Murdoc finished his cigarette, stubbed it out, and then threaded his hands into 2D's hair and pulled. Heart thumping, 2D glanced down at their bodies under the sheet. Need spiked through him at the sight of Murdoc's arousal that tented the sheets alongside his own. He, _2D_, did that to him, his secret obsession.

"I meant what I said, two dents, don't look at the sodding paper," Murdoc swore before he kissed him hard. "Needy bugger," he mumbled into 2D's open mouth as he pinned him to the bed again.

XXXXX

Desperation filled 2D's heart as the night grew small and quiet. There was some instinct that told him not to fall asleep, that if he fell asleep he wouldn't wake up like this, tangled up with his demonic keeper. Murdoc snored softly into 2D's shoulder. It was hopeless, of course, and though he wished and wished to stay, his mind soon drifted off and left.

XXXXX

The next morning 2D woke and tripped over a bottle that lay discarded by the bed; _his_ bed, he noticed, in _his_ room. Confused for some reason, 2D scratched his head. Annoyed, he kicked it out of sight under the bed before he went off to the toilets, wondering at how sore just a one half mile walk could make him.

XXXXX

"Y'know," Russ finally suggested as they stared at the relics, "y'know, they say when normal lay people achieve a rainbow body all they leave behind is hair and fingernails. Maybe . . . maybe all a person like Murdoc leaves behind is his stash and a zippo?"

No address, no note, no number, just his cell, his tattered wallet, a few zip lock bags of white powder, and a lighter scattered over the kitchen table like some kind of weird omen. Without a word 2D walked out onto the balcony and looked up at the sky. When he came back in he just shook his head and continued to stare at the pile of stuff.

"Y'know man, maybe he just went off to rehab or somethin'?"

"'s too expensive."

After a cursory inspection Russ found Murdoc's ancient, yellow stained ID intact inside the wallet. There was a crusty tenner in there, as well as a scratched up credit card from an American bank with the name Danny Stonehall written on it, which Russel hastily replaced with a leery grimace.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed 'D push on a series of big, black, finger-sized bruises over his skinny bicep, an expression of anxious worry all over his face in the way he bit at his lower lip with his canines and squinted his eyes like if he stared hard enough at the pile of crap Murdoc would somehow spontaneously appear.

"He'll be back,'D, although I can't pretend to understand why you'd miss 'im in the first place."

"Wot're you doin'?" 2D asked when Russ snatched up the baggy in his fist.

"Flushin' this shit; that cracker ass doesn't need any more bite." Protest about to tumble from his bandmate's mouth Russ headed him off with a stern glare. "Don't trip, 'D, if the sucka's gonna leave it on the kitchen table he's fixin' ta lose it anyway, ya feel me?" Still, the tall man followed him all the way to the bathroom and hopped back and forth from one foot to the other as the deed was done. "No fire and brimstone yet, man."

Together they watched the powder swirl away into the bowels of the landfill.

"Well, while we're at it," Russ muttered under his breath.

"W-Where're you goin'?"

"The Winnebago."

"W-Wot?" Russ could practically see all his hair stand on end like he'd stuck his pinkie in an electrical socket.

"You heard me."

"Russ,"

"'D. Aren't you curious, man?" That gave the blue-haired singer pause. "I know I am," and he continued on his way. Curious, yes, he mused as they made their way through the cool, damp underbelly of the studios, but probably not curious in the same way 2D was curious. Russel's intent to snoop was in the interest of professional integrity – example: it would not bode well to get in too deep with a sociopath. 2D, however, obviously had some sort of whacky history with the alcohol-soaked bassist. That shit was _not_ something Russ wanted to poke into; even as they walked the kid continued to massage his arm with almost manic insistence. Russ figured it would all surface eventually.

There was a note on the door:

"Fuck Off Freeloaders."

Russ tried the handle, but it was locked. Just a glance over his shoulder was all the warning he gave 2D before he wrenched it open anyway. Behind him 2D had crouched down and covered his head, obviously just as terrified of Murdoc's bird as of the man himself, but there was no enraged raven to greet them. If nothing else, Cortez's absence was the conclusive sign that Murdoc wasn't just off to commit some mischief or another; wherever he was, he didn't plan to return over the weekend.

"C'mon, let's see inside." Russel was on a mission for drugs and/or some sign that there might be murdered bodies buried in the landfill. Drugs he did find, most of which he figured Murdoc just forgot – rather like a squirrel loses some of its acorns in the mad scramble – there was no other explanation as to why he'd forfeit some but not all of his stash. He confiscated all of it except the giant, vacuum sealed bag of weed in a cubby hidden under his filthy mattress stained with twining, coppery lines.

There were no bloodied weapons, though; no weapons of any kind, in fact. No muddy shovel either, which he'd half expected to find up against the wall by his bed. That was a relief.

2D, on the other hand, seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of all the secret places in there – after he calmed down a bit he'd shown Russ the last couple hidey holes where Murdoc had drugs stashed.

After that while Russ poked around the demonic man's massive record collection (he had some seriously sick old funk albums) 2D went and poked around on shelves and flipped through what seemed like a random selection of books. He wondered if 'D even registered his presence anymore as the braindead pianist ran his big fingertips over the numerous cracked and flaking spines, but even so Russ was still careful to keep his watchful gaze as subtle as possible. At one point a slip of paper fell out of a book 2D rifled through, and like a little, hungry fish 2D darted down to snatch it up in his fist. Without a glance at what was written there the blue-haired man shoved it in his pocket and continued in his search. What the hell? Over the next twenty minutes 2D uncovered two more slips of paper.

After that he moved on to some cubbies that hung over the bassist's bed. Within a few moments he withdrew his hand, an unmarked CD in a plain jewel case held lovingly in his grip. It was almost a full minute that 2D stared down at the disc.

Then, as if gripped by some entity, the skinny man floated over to the old, dusty set of keyboards up against the far wall that'd been there the whole time and ran his fingers almost reverently over them. There was a letter scrawled on each white key, and Russel wondered if Murdoc had tried to teach himself piano at some point.

"Those are shit, 'D." Like a kid caught jerking it 2D jumped back and turned his wide eyes on Russ. "You know the ones we got in the studios are ten times better than those," he pushed a bit harder, curious despite his resolve to let dogs lie. After a tense moment 2D laughed and scratched the back of his neck.

"Yeah, 'spose so," he conceded, but again as they walked out the kid glanced back almost lovingly at the dusty piano.

Interesting.

With a loud bang he secured the broken door back in its frame, noticed 'D still held the CD loveingly in both hands.

"What a fucking dump. Let's go flush this shit."


End file.
